United States Identification Title of the survey: Current Population Survey (CPS) Organisation responsible: U.S. Census Bureau Objectives of the survey: Collect timely labour force information. Date: 09/06/2011 Periodicity and coverage Periodicity of data collection: Monthly Geographical coverage: Whole country Population coverage: Whole population excluding the following groups: Armed forces, persons living in institutions and homeless people Definition of usual resident: The usual place of residence is defined as the place where a person usually lives and sleeps. It must be specific living quarters held by the person to which he/she is free to return at any time. Living quarters rented or loaned to someone else or that are exchanged for other living quarters temporarily, cannot be considered as a usual place of residence during the time these quarters are occupied by someone else. Definition of household and household members: The following persons in a sample unit are considered as household members: 1) Persons, whether present or temporarily absent, whose usual place of residence at the time of interview is the sample unit. 2) Persons staying in the sample unit who have no usual place of residence elsewhere. A household is defined as all individuals (related family members and all unrelated individuals) whose usual place of residence at the time of the interview is the sample unit. Individuals who are temporarily absent and who have no other usual address are still classified as household members even though they are not present in the household during the survey week. College students compose the bulk of such absent household members, but people away on business or vacation are also included. (Not included are individuals in institutions or the military.) Once household/non household membership has been established for all people on the roster, the interviewer proceeds to collect all other demographic data for household members only. The unit of observation is a household address, not people. The CPS does not follow people if or when they move, but covers whoever is currently in the household (address). The CPS is not limited to U.S. citizens. It includes foreign citizens residing in the U.S. who are not living in embassies. Please refer to Chapter 5 of CPS Technical Paper 66: http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/tp-66.pdf Usual household members who are temporarily absent are enumerated in the survey: Yes, in household roster only Age coverage: The labour related questions of the survey relate to the population of 16 years old and over Topics covered: Demographic characteristics: age, sex, marital status, place/country of birth, ethnicity, educational attainment, relationship to household head, disability Main labour related characteristics: employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, wages, employment related benefits, trade union affiliations, voluntary work, absence from work Other labour related characteristics: industry, occupation, institutional sector (public/private), size of establishment, full time/part time status, permanency of the job, working time arrangements, duration of employment, existence of more than one job, characteristics of the second job(s), duration of unemployment, previous working experience, characteristics of the last job, search for another job, methods of looking for work, receipt of unemployment benefits, reasons for not being in the labour force Other characteristics: other sources of income (e.g. income from property) Concepts and definitions Current employment Definition of employment: Employed persons are those who are working at a paid job or business for at least one hour during the reference week, or are working without pay in a family business for 15 or more hours during the reference week or who did not work that week, but held a job or owned a business from which they were temporarily absent. Employment refers to people who during the reference period: - worked for one hour or more for wage or salary, in cash or in kind - worked for at least 15 hours without pay on a family business or farm Reference period for employment: The week containing the 12th of the month (fixed) Comments: Sometimes the week of the 5th in November and December Current unemployment Definition of unemployment: The unemployed are persons who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work at that time except for temporary illness, and had made active efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not be actively looking to be classified as unemployed. Unemployment refers to people who during the reference period: Are without work, available to work and actively seeking work Reference period for seeking work: The four weeks preceding the interview date (moving) Reference period for availability for work: The week containing the 12th of the month (fixed) Comments: Sometimes the week of the 5th in November and December Underemployment Underemployment concept measured: Time related underemployment Definition of underemployment related to working time: Underemployment refers to those who worked part time for economic reasons, that is, people who wanted a full time job but worked less than 35 hours during the reference week for reasons such as slack work or the inability to find full-time work. There are two categories of part time for economic reasons: those who usually work full time and those who usually work part time (based on usual hours). The number of hours they worked during the reference week is based on actual hours. Underemployment refers to employed persons who: - worked less than 35 hours a week in all jobs - want to work additional hours Information collected on the number of hours of work wanted/ available for: No Hours of work The survey measures: hours actually worked and usual hours Information is collected for: main and secondary job(s) separately Reference period used for the measure of hours of work: a week Actual hours of work are collected for: the week as a whole Separate information is collected for overtime hours: yes Definition of overtime hours: The CPS captures usual hours and actual hours at work. Fulltime workers are those who usually work 35 hours or more per week. Part-time workers are those who usually work less than 35 hours per week (whether for economic reasons or for noneconomic reasons). We do not collect information in the CPS on overtime hours per se. The question is "(THE WEEK BEFORE LAST/LAST WEEK), did (name/you) work any overtime or extra hours (at (his/her) MAIN job that / that)(you/he/she) (do/does) not usually work?" This lumps together "overtime" and "extra hours." Separate information is collected for absence hours: yes Definition of absence hours: Hours lost or taken off compared to usual hours of work. Separate information is collected for working time arrangements: no Time unit used in the measure of hours of work: exact hours Income from paid employment The components of income for which separate statistics are available are: regular cash earnings, irregular cash earnings, profit related pay, College assistance Income from paid employment covered: GROSS income Reference period: no reference period - usual earnings are collected Income from paid employment refers to: main job only Information on income from paid employment is requested in: exact amounts Comments: Data on usual weekly earnings received is collected. Weekly is not a reference period. Responses above refer to usual weekly earnings collected in the monthly Current Population Survey. Income from self-employment Employment in the informal sector Informal employment Usual activity Treatment of special groups - Persons with a job but temporarily absent due to parental leave are classified as employed - Persons with a job but temporarily absent due to educational or training leave are classified as employed - Persons with a job but temporarily absent due to voluntary leave without pay are classified as employed - Persons on temporary lay-off without pay are classified as unemployed if they expect to be called back to work - Persons without work and currently available for work who are not seeking work during the reference period due to specific reasons (e.g. discouraged workers) are classified as economically inactive - Persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period but were subject to compulsory schooling are classified as employed - Persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period but were full-time or part-time students are classified as employed - Persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period but were retired and/or receiving a pension are classified as employed - Persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period but were registered as jobseekers at an employment office are classified as employed - Persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period but were receiving unemployment benefits are classified as employed - Paid apprentices and trainees are classified as employed Classifications Disaggregations used in the analysis and tabulation of the survey results: - The economically active population is tabulated by: - The employed population is tabulated by: sex, age, industry, occupation, level of education, institutional sector (public/private), urban/rural area - The unemployed population is tabulated by: sex, age, industry, occupation, level of education, institutional sector (public/private), urban/rural area - The economically inactive population is tabulated by: Classifications used Industry: - Title of the classification: Census industry coding system (NAICS based) - Number of most detailed groups or digits used: 256 groups Occupation: - Title of the classification: Census occupation coding system (SOC based) - Number of most detailed groups or digits used: 535 groups Status in employment: Education: - Title of the classification: PEEDUCA Sample design Sampling frame: Master address file based on Decennial Census The sampling frame is updated: continually Procedure used to update the sampling frame: The sample is updated continuously for new housing built after Census 2000. Lowest level of geographic disaggregation for which reliable estimates of the unemployment rate can be produced and their frequency: Cities with 25000 inhabitants and over (monthly) The sample is stratified: Yes Variables used for stratification: geographic region, urbanisation, population size of locality, socio-economic characteristics: labour force characteristics and other characteristics that are highly correlated with unemployment Number of sampling stages: 2 Ultimate sampling units: dwellings Sample size: 60000 ultimate sampling units per month Sample fraction: 0.055% of the total population Sample rotation takes place: at the ultimate sampling unit level only The rotation system results in: the overlap between consecutive survey periods and the overlap between same periods one year apart Percentage of ultimate sampling units remaining in the sample for two consecutive survey rounds: 75% Maximum number of times an ultimate sampling unit is interviewed: 8 Months needed to renew the sample completely: 16 Data collection Main mode of data collection: computer assisted personal interview (CAPl) The field staff is mainly: part of a permanent survey organisation Duration of training on the survey for newly recruited interviewers: 5 day(s) Respondents' participation in the survey is compulsory: No Ultimate sampling units that could not be identified are replaced: No Ultimate sampling units that could not be contacted are replaced: No Ultimate sampling units that refuse to participate are replaced: No Estimation and adjustment Percentage of all eligible ultimate sampling units that are interviewed: 92% Percentage of refusals in the total non-response: 17% The sample is self-weighting: No Weighting factors used to adjust for: sample design, survey non-response, bench-marking (to ensure consistency between survey estimates and those from other reliable source(s), e.g. census) Adjustment for item non-response is made: Yes Method of imputation: The three imputation methods used by the CPS edits are: (1) Relational imputation infers the missing value from other characteristics on the person’s record or within the household. For instance, if race is missing, it is assigned based on the race of another household member, or failing that, taken from the previous record on the file. Similarly, if relationship data is missing, it is assigned by looking at the age and sex of the person in conjunction with the known relationship of other household members. Missing occupation codes are sometimes assigned by analyzing the industry codes and vice versa. This technique is used as appropriate across all edits. If missing values cannot be assigned using this technique, they are assigned using one of the two following methods.(2) Longitudinal edits are used in most of the labour force edits, as appropriate. If a question is blank and the individual is in the second or later month’s interview, the edit procedure looks at last month’s data to determine whether there was an entry for that item. If so, last month’s entry is assigned; otherwise, the item is assigned a value using the appropriate hot deck, as described next. (3) The third imputation method is commonly referred to as ‘‘hot deck’’ allocation. This method assigns a missing value from a record with similar characteristics, which is the hot deck. Hot decks are defined by variables such as age, race, and sex. Other characteristics used in hot decks vary depending on the nature of the unanswered question. For instance, most labour force questions use age, race, sex, and occasionally another correlated labour force item such as full- or part-time status. This means the number of cells in labour force hot decks are relatively small, perhaps fewer than 100. On the other hand, the weekly earnings hot deck is defined by age, race, sex, usual hours, occupation, and educational attainment. This hot deck has several thousand cells. Relative standard errors computed: - Total unemployment rate: 0.2 % Confidence level: 90 % If sub-annual surveys are conducted, the results are adjusted for seasonal variations: Yes Data series seasonally adjusted: 1060 seasonally adjusted series ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/time.series/ln/ln.series and ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/time.series/le/le.series Method(s) used for seasonal adjustment: X-12 ARIMA Selected indicators tabulated from the survey: - Unemployment rate by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Employment to population ratio by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Labour force participation rate by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Hours of work (per worker) by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Earnings (per worker) by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Number of workers by hours band by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) - Number of workers by earnings class by: sex, age, level of education, occupation, region (urban/rural) Availability of data from other sources - Data on employment is also available from: establishment surveys and administrative records - Data on hours of work is also available from: establishment surveys - Data on wages is also available from: establishment surveys and administrative records LFS data are considered official for: - employment: yes - unemployment: yes - earnings: yes - hours of work: yes Documentation and dissemination Publication(s) and website where the survey results can be found: Employment Situation news release; many annual publications; www.bls.gov/cps Publication(s) and website where methodological information on the survey can be found: Design and Methodology: Current Population Survey, Technical Paper 66; www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/tp-66.pdf Dissemination formats and periodicity: - news release (monthly) - comprehensive report (monthly) - online database (monthly) - microdata access (monthly) Time needed for an initial release of the survey results: approximately 2 weeks after the end of the data collection period The public is informed in advance on the date of the initial release of survey results: Yes Non-published results can be made available on request: Yes Micro data are made available on request: Yes Comments: Not revised on a monthly basis Historical information Year when the survey was conducted for the first time: 1940 Years when significant methodological changes were introduced: Chapter 2 of the Technical paper 66 on the Current Population Survey gives the details regarding methodological changes over time. Available at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/tp66.pdf